The Olympics: For Gold, Silver & Bronze

On and on they camepurple-turbaned
Indians, saffron-robed Ghanaians, Bermudians in (what else?) Bermuda
shorts, Americans in L.B.J. hats, Russians waving red ribbons at the
cheering crowd. Trumpets blared, cannons roared, and screaming jets
traced the five-ringed Olympic symbol in the sky.
Onto the rust-colored track at Tokyo's National Stadium trotted
Yoshinori Sakai, a 19-year-old student who was born near Hiroshima just
hours after the atomic bomb fell on the city. Carrying aloft the
blazing Olympic torch, Sakai bounded up a flight of 179 steps, thrust
it into a cauldron of oil. Flames leapt up, and halfway around the
world, in...